


szła biedronka po zasłonkach

by BiesFromWildland



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Tenderness, more like half-polish but you know what i mean, polish martin, safe house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25000546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiesFromWildland/pseuds/BiesFromWildland
Summary: “Oddział Zamknięty?” Martin muttered trying to remember if he ever heard this name.But before he put the DC into the player Jon stopped his hand.“Maybe... not this one” Jon said and something in his voice made Martin squint a little.“Oh. Okey.”aka Martin finds one polish rock band between Jon's CDs and gets very interested as to why his boyfriend doesn't want to listen to it.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 15
Kudos: 116





	szła biedronka po zasłonkach

**Author's Note:**

> I decided that Martin is half-polish and therefore I can project on him _hard_.

Most of their raid was quiet. No words, even if there was a lot to say. No music, even if the silence begged to be broken. Just the sounds of car, their breaths, and ideas so dense the air felt like oil.

But underneath all of this there was a sense of… Some kind of softness? Familiarity? Even hopefulness in some way. Once in a while Martin would glance at Jon and see the smallest curve of a smile appear on his face. Another time it would be Jon looking at Martin and seeing absolute peacefulness as he gazed at the hills and valleys. And sometimes one of them would exclaim “sheeps!” or “horses!” or even “cows!”. It was good and after a few hours of journey Martin finally felt like he is capable of moving and not just existing.

Slowly Martin tried to make the radio work, but after getting nothing but static he turned it off rapidly. He felt like he heard enough static noises for his whole life.

“There are...” Jon started after a while. “There are some CDs in the compartment, if you want.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

There was, in fact, a lot of CDs. Martin looked through them and couldn’t stop himself but wonder if this is really music that Jon listened to or just what he got from Georgie. It was a mix of old punk and rock bands, and things he could only assume to be metal by the way their names sounded. But one name caught his attention simply because it was _in Polish_.

“Oddział Zamknięty?” he muttered trying to remember if he ever heard this name.

But before he put the DC into the player Jon stopped his hand.

“Maybe... not this one” Jon said and something in his voice made Martin squint a little.

“Oh. Okey.”

Instead he put on some old rock band and let it play quietly in the background for the rest of the journey.

* * *

A few days later Martin found himself looking through Jon’s music collection once more. They were sitting on a sofa, shoulder to shoulder, with sounds of rain hitting the windows softly in the background. Jon tried to read something but was mostly dozing off, while Martin decided he wants to get to know Jon’s music taste a little bit better. Slowly he was going through them, using an old discman he somehow found in the safehouse. Sometimes he would listen to a song or two from an album, sometimes he would decide to move on after a few seconds. And every so often he would come back to that one CD from the car trip. Why didn’t Jon want to listen to it? The songs were just sad, probably, or maybe there were some bad memories attached to them, and Martin was overthinking the whole situation but he _really_ wanted to know.

“Hey, Jon? Jon?”

“Hmm?” muttered Jon, still half-asleep.

“Would it be… I mean… Oddział Zamknięty? I didn’t know you listen to Polish music.” Martin tried to cover the nervousness in his voice with a small chuckle. It didn’t work.

“I don’t, usually” said Jon and become silent for a moment. Then he grunted. “It was given to me by a guy who thought he is being _hilarious_ by making me listen to a song about spiders but _in Polish_ so I didn’t understand a word.”

“Wow.” “Yea.”

“Was it Tim?”

“What? No! It was long before the archives, when I was in college.”

Martin chucked and reached for the teacup. The tea was still warm and sometimes he enjoyed holding the warm cup more than drinking itself. “So then why do you keep it? There must have been plenty occasions to give it to someone or simply to throw it away.”

Jon was silent. Martin tried to look at him hard enough to make him talk, but Jon buried himself in his too big sweater and then sunken lower, pushing his face into Martin’s chest.

“Jon?”

“Mhh?”

“Jon. _Jon_.”

“Georgie liked it and so I got kinda… attached.”

“Alright. That makes sense, I suppose,” said Martin trying to hide the bitterness that suddenly showed up. Being jealous of Jon’s ex made no sense, but oh well, what did. “But can I listen to it?”

Jon let out the longest sigh right into Martin’s chest.

“Yea,” he said, flatly.

And so Martin started listening to the album. It wasn’t Martin’s type of music but also was not-not his type? It was kinda nice, Martin could see someone getting attached to it. He could also understand bits and pieces of what they were singing about. It was kinda hard as he hadn’t spoken Polish in ages. Song after song, Martin started drifting in and out of sleep, only barely realizing that Jon stopped pretending that he is reading and was taking a nap.

Something, something, lots of Polish words blending into a background… Why were they singing about wife’s chameleons? And why were they singing this nursery rhyme that his mother taught him when he was little? They were singing about a ladybug and a spider, and OHHH Martin knew the text! And Martin knew what was going to happen next in the song! Wait, was it THE song that Jon was talking about??

“Jon, Jon, Jonjonjon, is this the song???” Martin quickly took out one of the earphones and showed it at Jon, who, suddenly awaked, did not understand what was going on. So he took the earphone. And after a second he squinted at nothing in particular.

“...Yes.”

“Jon, I know this song.”

“You do?”

“Yes! My mother taught me this rhyme when I was a kid. I didn’t know there was a song version of it.”

Jon looked confused. “But this song was written by one of the members of this group.”

“Oh? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I checked it when I was trying to find some kind of translation.”

“Oh. Huh,” said Martin, visibly deflated.

“Did… Did your mother… Did she teach you a text of a rock song like… A poem?”

“It sure does look this way.”

A weird silence fell between them. Martin was trying to understand this revelation but things didn’t really make much sense. And only the singer in their earphones was slowly revealing more and more of the story of the ladybug and the spider.

“Soo…” Martin spoke again when the song was finished. “Did you ever find a translation?”

“Not really. I translated some words, but never the full text.”

“And do you, maybe, want me to translate it? For you?” Martin tried to sound flirtatious but in his own opinion he failed miserably.

Jon looked at him and blinked. “Honestly I forgot you knew Polish.”

Martin laughed a bit. “Yea, sometimes I forget that too. But I think I know this text well enough to at least attempt it.”

“Okey. Yes. I would like to hear your translation.”

“Great!” exclaimed Martin suddenly standing up. “Umm, could you, um, find me something to write on? And I will, make us some _tea.”_

And before Jon could answer Martin disappeared in the kitchen.

Putting the kettle on Martin tried to calm down at least a little bit. His heart was beating like crazy and he could feel his cheeks flushing. It took Martin a moment, but he finally understood what was going on: he was happy. He was happy, he was being an idiot, and also, he was in love. It wasn’t a new information, it wasn’t something unrequired or even to be hidden in shame or fear. It was something that he _knew_ was reciprocated. They even talked about it! They knew about their feelings! Why was Martin still reacting like that! All he could do was to guess that he was simply _unused_ to having emotions this big. Because it was big. It was in fact so big that he could barely hold it in. His chest felt like it could explode from all the tender love he was holding in himself.

“Martin? Is everything alright?”

Martin almost screamed turning around to see Jon standing in the doorframe.

“Yes! Perfectly! Why are you asking?”

“The water’s boiling.”

“Oh.”

The water has been in fact boiling for a while, so Martin quickly made two teas.

“I found some paper!” announced Jon, trying to fill the silence. “And several pens. One of them even works.”

Martin laughed softly and with that felt like he is grounded in the moment once again. It was such a small thing, but Martin could see the change in Jon’s posture - he became more relaxed and the tension in his shoulders went away. The way he stood there, such a small person, framed by doors and overwhelmed by the too big sweater, was endearing in a way, that made Martin’s heart ache.

They went back to the sofa, and Martin started writing down the lyrics as he remembered them.

“So the song starts _szła biedronka po zasłonkach._ In English it will be something like… A ladybug was walking on a curtain. And then _napotkała tam pająka_ means she met there a spider.”

At the mention of a spider Jon visibly flinched, even if he tried to hide that. Martin stopped writing for a moment.

“You are sure you are all right?”

“I’m fine. Continue, please.”

And so Martin did. Slowly, stumbling upon words and re-listening to the song time after time they figured out how to translate the story of the ladybug and the spider. And it was a rather simply story: a ladybug meets a spider who asks her if she wants to eat breakfast with him, and when she agrees the spider decides that ladybug _is_ his breakfast.

“Hm, I think I like this song even less than I did before,” said Jon after the third verse.

“Yea, well, the next verse sounds even more like it’s about the web. It goes like _Oh ladybug mine, why did you walk on the curtain? The spider allies with everyone, gives nothing yet takes.”_

“Hmm, I don’t like that at all.”

“Do you think that whoever wrote this came into contact with the web?”

“Maybe. But hopefully not. It could all be just a coincidence.”

Martin didn’t need Jon to say anything more to understand, that Jon didn’t think it was this simple. But this was exactly what the mother of puppets did to people's heads: questions, uncertainty, doubts… Was the person who gave Jon the album just a mean guy or was the web working on Jon? Was Martin’s mother thinking she is being funny or was the web checking grounds? And no matter what they thought the spider would win in some way or the other.

The song was put on repeat so it ended and started once again. But this time when the lyrics started _Jon started singing along._ At first Martin looked at Jon in shock of how good it was. Jon had a good voice and knew how to sing, and it was so nice to listen! If only he was singing in English, though, because Jon’s accent was _terrible._ And so Martin sat there, listening to Jon’s singing, in a mix of amazement and terror until Jon finished the song.

“What?” asked Jon when he finally looked at Martin.

“Iloveyou” Martin blurted out.

There was a second of pause before Jon’s face turned all red.

“You can’t say that!”

“Well, I think I can! Because that’s true!”

Once again Jon hid his face by pushing it into Martin’s chest. This effected in Martin more feeling than hearing Jon mumbling “I love you too…”, but somehow the fact that it was said so close to his heart made him tremble. Martin hugged Jon and kissed him gently on the head. There were so many things he wanted to say, but his emotions were too big to simply convey them in the moment. All he could do was to hold his love tightly, like there was nothing that could separate them ever again.

“Ok, but we will need to work on your accent. Your Polish is _terrible,_ ” said Martin finally, half joking.

Jon grumbled a bit, but in a way that made Martin think, he was actually happy to learn. “I guess we could do that. Just not with that song.”

“Fair enough.”

They sat there for a long time, hugging each other and talking about small stuff, until they started dozing off once again. But before they fell asleep Martin remembered another song that his mother used to listen to sometimes, and he started to hum it softly. Finally, Jon has fallen into a peaceful sleep while Martin was singing to him _kocham cię, kochanie moje, kocham cię, a kochanie moje, to oczy twoje we mnie wpatrzone..._

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so! The song it's all about is called "Horror" by Oddział Zamknięty and you can listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAkBnaCfuOw). The story cames from the fact that my dad thought he was really funny when he taught me this song as a nursery rhyme. I learned it was a song somewhere in the middle school. :")  
> The other song mentioned at the end is ["Kocham cię, kochanie moje" by Maanam.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIncb6Gy2js) The part I quoted simply traslates as "I love you, my love, I love you, ah my love, this are your eyes staring at me" but like, more gently. 
> 
> And finally you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/WildBies) and [tumblr](https://bies-from-wildland.tumblr.com/)! And know that I will love you forever if you leave a comment. ♥


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